


We Watched the Sun Set

by kabigon



Series: (I Can't Wait to Go) Home [3]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Future Fic, Idiots in Love, Infidelity, LobbySameSameChallenge, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Romanticized Cheating, Slow Burn, cheating with each other, post-retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29770947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabigon/pseuds/kabigon
Summary: “You are happy with this?"He reminds himself not to be too greedy.  Everyone wants Yuzu but Yuzu wants him, even if only for short bursts of time, moments secreted away like this, so it’s enough.  It has to be.“Yeah,” he says, putting on a smile.  “I can be happy with this.”
Relationships: Javier Fernández/Yuzuru Hanyu
Series: (I Can't Wait to Go) Home [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2187993
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	We Watched the Sun Set

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks to [of_feathers_and_bowstrings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/of_feathers_and_bowstrings) for beta-ing =)

The music cuts and Javi collapses knee first onto the ice, a hand over his heart, his head hanging like he’d been cut too. A beat, two, of silence and then echoing throughout the empty rink, vigorous applause from Yuzu as he skates to a stop in front of Javi, towering above him until Javi takes the offered help up.

“Perfect?” It’s the first time he’d been able to complete the routine from start to finish.

Yuzu’s nose scrunches, smile splitting his face, looking at Javi like he wants to laugh. “Javi is so funny,” he teases. “This is only first pancake.”

Javi throws his head back and groans. “First pancake. ‘First pancake’. Brian should never have taught you that.”

Yuzu’s brow knit together, confused. “What? Why? It is perfect meaning. First pancake for all the mistakes and now we make every pancake after pretty.” And then, like the cat who’d gotten into the milk, his lips pursed slightly into the barest of a smile he’s trying to contain, he pushes Javi back into center ice. “Again,” he commands.

“Yuzu,” he starts, whining.

Yuzu’s eyes harden, pushing him harder. “Again.”

Reluctantly, happily, at Yuzu’s request, he performs, catching a glimpse of soft eyes and a gentle face watching him just before the song closes.

“How is it?” he asks, joining Yuzu by the music player.

“Good,” Yuzu answers easily. “I forgot how beautiful Javi’s skating is.”

“You forgot? What, like that time you forgot your other glove?”

Javi grins when Yuzu’s face sours at the memory. “I did not forget. My _mom-”_

“Yuzu,” he interrupts, voice dropping low, teasing, “think about what you’re just about to say. You’re really going to blame your mom?”

“I blame mom because it is true. She did not pack it.”

“How old were you again?” he tosses back, shit-eating grin easing to the top.

Yuzu huffs and pushes away, Javi catching the beginning of a smile as Yuzu strokes forward, leaving Javi behind to chase after him. He calls after Yuzu who, in a single stroke, is, unsurprisingly, already halfway across the rink. Even this far he can see Yuzu’s head shake, speaking loudly as he does so there’s no mistaking his words. “Javi ruin moment."  
  


Javi rolls his eyes affectionately before setting off after Yuzu at near full speed. “What moment?”

Yuzu shakes his head, playfully petulant. “Nope. Moment is gone.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep.”

Javi swings ahead, shocking a yelp out of Yuzu when he snags Yuzu by the waist, holds him close, their bodies pressed together, spinning before Yuzu can pry himself free. “Javi!” he screeches, laughs, clinging onto Javi’s shoulder, holding on for dear life because he has no control.

“Okay!” Yuzu shouts, still giggling. “Okay, I tell you! But you have to stop so I can say!”

He slows them down, urges expectantly when they’re almost at a standstill, “Yes?”

“I was going to tell Javi that I forget because I don’t see it often and memory is not enough. Javi’s skating is meant to be lived. And,” he softens, his expression gentle, “I was going to tell Javi that only Javi is my equal in everything.”

The words take a second to sink in, to seed and sprout into being while he knocks their heads together, eyes closed to relish the moment. Sometimes he forgets how good he was because it feels like, outside of his little corner, the figure skating world has mostly forgotten about him, like he never happened, like he was never there. But Yuzu, still beloved, still revered and admired and inspiring new skaters, remembers and—

“God, Yuzu, you’re just—” Heart rabid, full and overwhelmed, all he’s wanted to say since that night at the wedding, since Yuzu jumped on a plane and flew halfway across the world for his show, halfway across the world to steal is quad Sal, since Finland, combusts and without thought “—I love you.”

Yuzu doesn't react except with a pained, “Javi…” and he just… he looks at Javi with these eyes that Javi can’t read and—  
  
He swallows and says it again. “I love you, Yuzu.”

—he slides into Javi’s arms, making himself small and—

—oh. Yuzu isn’t saying it back because Yuzu doesn’t feel the same way.

* * *

When he sees Yuzu next it’s like nothing changed. It’s like he didn’t spill his heart out to Yuzu only to be let down gently. When they’re strangers in public, Yuzu still sneaks his hand in Javi’s, and when they’re at Javi’s favorite bar watching Real Madrid, Javi still crowds Yuzu against the bar and kisses him, and after he’s pushed his cum inside Yuzu as deep as it can go, after Yuzu has done the same to him, after their shower, Yuzu still asks him to stay until he falls asleep and Javi still ends up spending the night and in the morning he thinks that it’s okay even if Yuzu doesn’t love him back. As long as he can have some part of Yuzu, if he can have this while Yuzu is in Spain, if he can have some semblance of this after Yuzu has left, bits and pieces like sprinkles on ice cream then yes, yes, he’s happy. He can be happy.

* * *

David comes to take control of Javi’s show as a disaster, flailing and overthinking too much and constantly muttering to himself that he really should take more Xanax because the anxiety is killing him and yet, somehow with the month that Javi gives him to help plan and choreograph and actually teach it to the skaters, they make it happen and they make it through the first show, even if, according to David, only by the skin of his teeth.

Preparation for the first show is always the hardest. There’s practice and lighting and music and sound and timing and costumes and all the tiny, smaller things that he forgot or hasn't thought about or has suddenly cropped up . The ones after are easier, more fun, going through the motions to reinforce muscle memory, rehearsing to get the feel of the space, to work out the local kinks of each rink.

Tail end of the shows—God, how did the time pass so quickly?—it almost feels like they’re at the Cricket Club again chasing each other on the ice, messing with one another, trying to outjump each other, Yuzu skating to David and hugging him from behind just because he wants to, David letting Yuzu hang onto him for as long as he wants. All they’re missing is Brian and Tracy. Someday. Someday he’ll get them all on the same ice again.

* * *

Before the cast list was released, before the tickets went on sale, back in the early planning stages, all three of them had collectively decided Yuzu was not going to participate. “Only make sense,” Yuzu had offered up diplomatically. “If I do meet and greet there will be too much chaos, too much attention on me, and take from other skaters. Take from Javi too.” Even with most of the shows behind them, most of the meet and greets too, it still feels wrong to actively exclude Yuzu. He’s part of the show, he _should_ be there.

It’s just him and David left by the end, sharing an event-hired car together as they head back to the hotel. The other skaters have decided to go out, explore the city’s nightlife a little, and if Javi had been younger he’d have gone with them. These days he’s feeling a bit too tired, not to mention he had promised Yuzu he’d make it up to him.

From the opposite end of the car, David’s head lobs to one side, sleepy-eyed and lethargic from having indulged in the open bar, just enough to be a little trashed, to be be a little fun, to let loose, to push his anxiety down so he could talk to strangers for hours and hours. David knows his limits and Javi trusts him to adhere to it.

“You know,” David begins, expression glazed over, “you and Yuzu forget that I have known you two for almost half your lives. You don’t think I wouldn’t notice this—” he waves his hand in the air dramatically, trying to convey in motion what he can’t in words, “—this _thing_ you two have going on?”

The sudden confrontation takes him completely by surprise. “What? It’s—”

David holds his hand up immediately, ceasing all protests from Javi. “Like I said Javi, half your lives. You cannot lie to me. I have been keeping my mouth shut by telling myself I should let you live your lives and not meddle, but what are you doing? _You_ have a fiance who loves you and supports you and who is a good person. It doesn’t seem to me like you are breaking it off any time soon with her, and yet you keep carrying on with Yuzu. My boy, I love you. I would sell my left kidney for you, but you need to stop stringing Yuzu along.”

“I’m not stringing him along, David,” he says quietly. “It’s just a bit of fun.”

“A bit of fun,” David echoes flatly and then, sadly, “Javi, you have been stringing that boy along for fifteen years. Don’t you think you ought to do right by him by now?”

Javi shakes his head. “I wish you were right but I already told Yuzu how I felt. He doesn’t feel the same way. He doesn’t love me back.”

“What?” Unable to comprehend, he repeats the question again. “What?”

Javi shrugs nonchalantly even if inside he’s anything but. “He doesn’t want me like that.”

David stares at him a beat, and then resolutely, “No. Oh, what did you two do? You two have created a right mess. You two need to talk. Really talk, Javi. Promise me. As your other surrogate father, I am demanding that you promise me.”

“Okay,” he says, finding it easier to give in than to try and tell David there’s really no point. “I’ll talk to Yuzu.”

“Good. Good. Now, am I crazy or have we been stopped a while?”

* * *

They lounge in bed for a lazy morning after the show; sunlight filtering through the crack in the curtains, haphazardly drawn closed the night before. It’s easy kisses and room service for breakfasts and Yuzu lounging around the hotel suite in Javi’s hoodie and Javi’s sweatpants because he hadn’t bothered bringing more than a light outdoor jacket. “Spain is supposed to be warm!” he had said and insisted, “Spain is supposed to be country of sun!” while Javi laughed at him and dug through his own clothes to share.

Javi with his coffee, Yuzu with his tea, fingers wrapped around the mug to warm them up, Yuzu asks, “After the shows, what happens?”

David’s words rise to the forefront, urging Javi to tell Yuzu the truth—I want something real, something more than just stolen time—and just as quickly Javi swallows it down with a gulp of his coffee, clearing is throat after, forcing himself to be easy-going, no care in the world, having fun living life moment to moment Javier Fernandez. “More of the same, I guess. You go home to Sendai, I stay here and whenever we meet, more of this—you and me.”

There’s a pause, Yuzu’s eyes are unreadable again, searching Javi’s face, frowning when he doesn’t seem to find what he’s looking for and then Yuzu asks, “You are happy with this?”

He reminds himself not to be too greedy. Everyone wants Yuzu but Yuzu wants him, even if only for short bursts of time, moments secreted away like this, so it’s enough. It has to be.

“Yeah,” he says, putting on a smile. “I can be happy with this.”

* * *

“Hey,” he says, coming up behind Yuzu, catching him before his cue to enter the ice, fingers curled over Yuzu’s shoulders and familiar sea-foam green, Yuzu’s back emanating heat against Javi’s chest. “What happened to Haru?” he asks, close to Yuzu’s ear and loud enough to be heard over the thumping music.

“I say goodbye,” Yuzu says back, softer than Javi and bittersweet.

Javi sneaks a kiss against the mole on Yuzu’s neck. “This is the last show but it doesn’t have to be goodbye. You can always come back next year. You know you’ll always have a place in my show if you want.”

Yuzu leans back, twists marginally so they’re staring face to face. He’s about to say something but the announcer calls his name, signaling for him to enter the ice. Instead of saying what he’d meant to say, he says to Javi, “I explain later,” and then he’s gone.

* * *

Walking out, he didn’t think there’d be anyone left, the rink closing early for the new year’s celebration. The closer he gets the clearer the music becomes, fast drums and slamming guitar, the familiar voice of One OK Rock’s lead singer. He bites back a smile. Yuzu is nothing if not consistent.

They hadn’t planned on meeting up until later, ringing in the new year with friends and, awkwardly for everyone who knew, with Clara too, later in the evening after dinner because Clara had wanted them to spend some time alone together. “To reconnect,” she had reasoned and then had clamped shut, not elaborating, Javi letting it go.

He stands by the edge to watch Yuzu skate, to absorb it in. It’s rare seeing Yuzu like this, unrefined, raw emotion and jagged edges, breathtaking and beautiful in it’s own way, frenetic as he flies with the tightening rhythm, building to a crescendo alongside the music and— 

Both stop abruptly, perfectly timed to a sudden conclusion after a burst of frenzy. Yuzu, center ice, in the short silence between one song to the next, takes that built up energy and channels it, narrowing it down to a single point of total control to hone like a weapon. Familiar pose, two fingers raised chest level, the music begins with a slow inhale, a sharp exhale with the taiko drum, and Yuzu comes to life, eyes fierce, piercing as he pivots.

Javi smiles to himself, amused, leaning against the boards while he watches, elbows resting on top, fingers weaved together. The quads are gone but that triple axel is still beautiful.

“This is a surprise,” he says, handing Yuzu his towel and water bottle. “Thought we weren’t meeting up until later with everyone else.”

“I have a thought, too,” Yuzu says, setting his towel and water bottle back down. “I decide that today, I will be Seimei.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I have to be strong, so I have to be Seimei now. So I can say goodbye.”

His chest tightens, a slight panic forming, his hand rising up to cup Yuzu’s cheek in response. “What’s going on?”

Yuzu leans into the touch for a second, eyes slipping shut to savor the moment like there’s so few left, before he backs away, backs out of reach. “I say proper goodbye to Javi this time. Not like how I did after wedding. So it can end properly.”

Javi’s heart lurches in his chest, confused and hurt. “Why?”

“Because I cannot be like Javi. Javi is happy with half life with Clara and half life with me but I cannot live a half life like that. I cannot be happy like that. For me, to be happy, I need full life with Javi or full life without Javi.”

“Full life with me?” comes tumbling out. “I offered that to you,” he adds, upset. “I told you I love you and you didn’t say it back.”

Yuzu’s face twists, hardening. “I didn’t say it back? What do you mean? I say it first. It was Javi who didn’t say it back until later. Saying love like I love Pooh is easy thing but saying love like how I feel for you is so hard. I- I cannot say it often. It just… it stays stuck in my chest so I try to show in different ways. And I say it already so Javi knows.”

Wait. Hold on.

“You love me?”

“Of course I do. I already say.”

“When? I never—” he stops. That night, Yuzu had— 

“That night after wedding. I told you, I- I gather all my courage to say, ‘I love you, Javi.’ Months and months later, Javi finally say it back to me. I was so happy but then… but then Javi stay with Clara too, and then Javi tell me he is happy if things stay the same and I- I thought about it, I thought maybe I can but David, David say, he said I also deserve to be happy.

“I deserve to be happy, too, so… so now I say goodbye.”

“Wait,” he insists, mind frantically scrabbling for purchase, jumping onto the ice in his shoes, terrified because it’s like Yuzu is already at the finished line bowing and saying his farewells and Javi’s still halfway trying to catch up and wrap his mind around the fact that, “You love me?”

Yuzu’s reaction is immediate, fondly exasperated, rolling his eyes, skating forward to catch Javi so that Javi doesn’t fall flat on his face in his haste to get to Yuzu. “Yes, how many times do I have to say,” and then, smaller, unsure. “You really don’t know?’

“No… I didn’t. And now it’s just goodbye? That’s it? It’s over? I thought—” he swallows thickly, heart thudding, “—I thought you didn’t like goodbyes with me.”

“I don’t,” Yuzu says, voice wrought, “but sometimes you still need to say goodbye.”

“Can we just take a step back? I feel like you’ve already decided what you’re going to do and I’m still just trying to figure things out wondering why we’re not on the same page,” he pleads, desperate, relieved when Yuzu nods after a short pause. “Okay. You love me.”

Yuzu is unimpressed. “Yes.”

“And I love you.”

An exasperated sigh escape Yuzu’s lips. “Yes.”

“But you don’t want to be with me.”

For a second Yuzu looks affronted, damn near murderous. “I want to be with you.”

“Then why are you saying goodbye?”

“Because I don’t want to be with you and have you be with me and also be with Clara! I don’t want to share! I don’t want to just have you maybe sometimes!”

It clicks, gears sliding into place and God, he’s such a fucking idiot, a laugh bubbling out of his chest, relieved and free and hysterical because fuck. Damnit. He should have listened to David. Yuzu’s face, incensed before, seeing it falling in an instant, hurt in his eyes, sobers him quickly though, the laugh dying on his lips.

“Yuzu…”

“It’s not funny for me,” Yuzu murmurs, unable to look at Javi. “For me, it hurts.”

Javi sucks in a breath. “Hey,” he says gently, guiding Yuzu’s head up so their eyes could meet. “I’m sorry. I was laughing because it was either laugh or beat myself up because I’ve been such an idiot. David told me… basically he told me to talk it out with you and I didn’t listen to him so I almost lost you.” 

Something’s let loose, like once he starts he can’t stop until he’s finished spilling his guts. “Sonia told me I had to choose. You, or Clara. I already knew before she asked. It’s you. It’s always been you. I was just a dumb kid who didn’t realize that, and it took me a long time to find my way back to you, but if you want me, if you want to do this for real, then I’m there. Every step of the way.”

Almost wide-eyed, bated breath, Yuzu asks, “You choose me?”

“I didn’t know I could,” he admitted. “I will always choose you.”

“You didn’t before.”

Javi shrugs. “Yeah well, I was a kid, and kids are dumb.”

Yuzu nods, agreeing with him immediately. It takes a moment but finally, “Okay.”

“Yeah? No goodbye?”

Yuzu shakes his head. “No goodbye. I hate goodbyes with Javi.”

* * *

In the skate changing room, Yuzu wiping his blades dry, he says to Javi, “I have been thinking that maybe, I don’t know how to say it properly, think that maybe our love is gross.”

“Gross?” he asks, perplexed.

Yuzu nods infinitesimally.

“How so?

Yuzu pauses to think his answer through, his hand slowing down. “Because Clara is a good person who loves Javi with her whole heart and we do this behind her back.”

It’s… yeah. “Maybe.” Maybe he’s terrible too, because the truth is still, “I don’t care if you don’t care.”

“I don’t care,” Yuzu says a beat later, head lifting up to meet Javi’s, leaning over to peck Javi’s mouth. “If I am with Javi and Javi choose me, I don’t care.”

“I do,” he confirms again. And we will. Again and again and again, however many times Yuzu needs him to, however many times Yuzu wants him to just so he can hear Javi say Javi chooses him. “Wait for me tonight?”

“Okay,” Yuzu says, full of pep. “I will wait for you.”

* * *

When he makes it home Clara is at the tail end of finishing dinner. She greets him warmly, stretching all the way over the counter to kiss his cheek. “Almost done,” she says after over the paella.

Calmly, he asks her, “Can we talk?”

She tenses, the line of her back taut. “Sure,” she says, still not facing him. “Let’s just make it through dinner first.”

Okay. Okay, he can do dinner. He can give her that. Except, it turns out, it’s not just dinner because “there’s still so much to do Javi, like cleaning the table and cleaning up the kitchen and the dishes and then we’ll have to head out already!”

“Clara,” he says, trying to get her to stop and listen while she’s wiping up the counters.

“Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow instead, hmm?”

“Clara,” he says, trying again. It’s clear to him she understands what he wants to say. “Things aren’t going to change tomorrow.”

This time she outright ignores him, turning her back towards him, twisting the water on and washing the dishes by hand. He sighs, unsure of what she’s thinking. Maybe she’s hoping that things really will be different tomorrow. That he’ll change his mind. Or maybe, if she doesn’t let him say it then it won’t happen.

He stands there waiting patiently, about to try again when she drops the bowl back into the sink with the sponge. Her shoulders are tense, raised, her hands curled around the edge of the sink. Despondent, she finally acknowledges it, what he’s been trying to say. “We’re not getting married, are we?”

“No,” he tells her honestly.

A sniffle, and then she wipes at her eyes. “It’s Yuzu, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I knew,” she admits, wiping furiously at her eyes, nose plugged up. “Ever since you came back from that wedding, there was just something different. And then Yuzu came and you just lit up, Javi. And all the other things. Like how sometimes you don’t come home at all. I was telling myself it was okay because you were only with Yuzu and it’s normal to spend the night at a friend’s place when it gets too late, and Yuzu needed someone to show him around Spain and who better than you, a friend? I never smelled him on you but just, you always smelled too clean when you came home.

“I told myself you were still with me. Even though you were cheating, you were still with me, you _proposed_ to me so that must mean something. I thought if we could just make it through the shows, if we could just make it through to the day Yuzu leaves then- Then we’d be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, keeping his distance. “You’re an amazing woman,” he continues. “It’s not anything with you or about you.”

“Right,” she throws back in disbelief, choking back a sob . “I’m so amazing and that’s why you’re leaving me?”

He fleetingly thinks that maybe it would be kinder to lie but they’re already here, the truth out, and he’s such a bad liar she’d be able to tell anyway, and then maybe she’d carry that with her, wondering and doubting and thinking she’d done something wrong, playing through scenario after scenario with what if’s. So, he tells her the truth. “It’s not anything you did or didn’t do. There wasn't anything you _could_ do. It’s because you’re not Yuzu.”

She’s silent for a long time, staring unseeingly into the sink until she starts to speak softly. “I’d like to be alone please.”

He nods, giving her the space she requested. “I’m- I have to go now too.”

“Just give me the week,” she says quietly. “I’ll move my stuff out.”

“If you need longer just let me know,” and then, before he leaves to go pack a bag, “I hope you get the good life you deserve, Clara.”

* * *

It’s almost midnight by the time he knocks on Yuzu’s door. There’s a thump, a shuffling, and quickly after the door fly opens, Yuzu greeting him with a huge grin and crescent eyes and a crinkling nose, not that Javi gets to see it for longer than half a second because Yuzu throws himself into Javi’s arms.

“Javi,” he screeches excitedly. “You made it! Hurry!”

Dazed, he lets himself be dragged inside. “Yuzu, what—”

Yuzu prattles right on walking further into his suite , Javi a few steps behind. “I thought Javi won’t make it for midnight into new year. I was going to be sad because they say what you do right at start of new year is what you will be doing for rest of the year, so I want to kiss Javi. I was thinking maybe Javi might not make it and it’s okay even if I will be sad but then poof, you’re here!”

Javi laughs, snagging Yuzu by the wrist and tugging him back. “I’m here,” he promises and when the countdown into the new year ends, he kisses Yuzu and Yuzu kisses him back.

* * *

Javi plays it cool, leaning against the trunk of his car while he waits in airport arrivals pickup, arms crossed loosely over his chest, heart full and stupid grin on his face when he spots Yuzu. Yuzu still home rinks in Sendai and Javi gets it. Sendai is so important to Yuzu and the students need him, especially during the summer months when Yuzu creates new programs for each student who wants one, working through the steps with them little by little, encouraging them when it feels too hard until they see what he sees in them. Javi would never take that away or ask Yuzu to give that up.

Yuzu spots him a second later, scurrying to Javi quickly with both his suitcases and a backpack. Before Javi can even say hello, Yuzu slots their mouths together, kissing him and kissing him and kissing him. He hums into it, surprised but pleased. When the kiss finally breaks, Yuzu pulls back with a contented sigh. “I missed you.”

“I can see that,” Javi teases, Yuzu rolls his eyes, and Javi barrels on. “How come I didn’t get this kind of hello when I visited?”

“Javi knows why,” he says. “Spain is Spain and Japan is Japan.” Japan is Japan. True. That’s really all that needs to be said. “Some day,” Yuzu promises. “Some day Japan will catch up.”

“Some day,” Javi echos, tugging Yuzu closer, arm looped around Yuzu’s waist, until their noses touch. This close, he speaks low enough just for the two of them to hear, says what he’s wanted to the moment he saw him. “Hi, Yuzu.”

A grin spreads across Yuzu’s mouth, so contagious it infects Javi too. “Hi, Javi.”

**Author's Note:**

> And we're at the end. I hope that you were able to enjoy this fic. It was... quite a ride. Some parts came so easy, some parts were a hassle LOL. I rewrote this fic _three_ times and currently, I'm just happy I got it out in time to finish to challenge.
> 
> Favorite line to write in this part: “I decide that today, I will be Seimei.” There's just something about Yuzu borrowing Seimei's power to do something hard that, I don't know, I just really like =)
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and, as always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated.


End file.
